


Mesuvulaya

by Medie



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-09
Updated: 2011-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-16 20:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has not told her children of her youth—not even her son, a grown man likely aware of it anyway—but the story is always there at the edges of her thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mesuvulaya

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [](http://mtgat.livejournal.com/profile)[**mtgat**](http://mtgat.livejournal.com/)'s prompt of Saavik: _Walking on the water, walking on the air_ for International Women's Day. Title comes from the [Vulcan Language Dictionary](http://www.starbase-10.de/vld/) meaning 'transformation'.

Her daughters are sleeping, but she is not. Saavik rises with the moon, leaving a bed too empty and too cold, and walks the house. It is a grand thing, her husband's personal estate, and yet she knows it nothing in comparison to the family one that her father-in-law inhabits. Still, with only her children and the few servants who live on the estate, it is so very empty.

So much so, she believes she can almost hear the soft breathing of her children as they sleep.

Wrapping a robe about herself, she leaves her feet bare to the chill of the stone floor, and leaves the bedroom. Spock is away, light years from her, his presence the faintest of echoes in her thoughts, but Saavik knows he is awake still. She closes her eyes, breathing out, and for a moment she can see a PADD before her, a steaming mug of saya, and feel the faintest simmer of irritation.

Her lips curve into a smile she rarely permits herself. The negotiations are not going well then. She makes note of this and detours to her office. It has been many years since she stood on the bridge of a starship, temporary though that absence might be, but her position on Vulcan allows her some influence within the intelligence community. Ones afforded her by many years partnership—friendship—with Nyota.

There might not be much she can do to assist him, but she will try anyway. Until he is in her presence, his skin pressed to hers, there is little else that she can do to relieve his tension.

Passing the rooms of her children, Saavik brushes a hand against the stone of the wall, catching the barest sense of their thoughts. They are years beyond the constant reassurance they once required, the familial bonds that once linked them have waned, but she senses the relaxation of sleep from both.

Lightening her step so as not to disturb them, she continues on to the office she shares with her husband and the computer banks therein. Her favourite of which sits atop her desk, the ancient, wooden piece a gift from Nyota, beside which a mug of her own saya awaits her.

Saavik bites back a laugh at the sight. It has been many, many generations since the old families demanded such service, but apparently the house staff did not, as her friends might say, 'get the memo' as to tradition's change.

Knowing better than to attempt correction—the one time she had, years before her marriage when she and Spock had not yet defined their connection, the elderly Lady Amanda had laughed so hard she'd lost her breath, panicking her son's companion and sending the house into an most un-Vulcan uproar, and all due to the horrified response of the estate manager—Saavik nods thanks to the apparently empty room and settles in at the desk.

It is late in Shi'kahr, but not so in San Francisco. Secure, direct channels make it easy to reach the people she requires and Saavik passes the time trading in secondhand rumors and scant sensor data, piecing together a report. Whether it will be of any use to Spock or not is irrelevant—it will, no doubt, cause the Klingons no end of annoyance—it is a pleasurable method to ignore insomnia.

Were Spock present, there would be _much_ more pleasurable methods by which to do so, she hums lightly at the memory of one such evening, but this is enough. She has found many things of this life unexpectedly enough. All of it, in truth. That girl Spock had found so many years ago would have never worn fine robes, lived in a grand estate, mothered daughters and son while writing reports and managing intelligence files. She would not have traded in information and suspicion from a position of power, cloaked herself in a name and a lineage, and she would not have been so comfortable in doing so.

And yet the woman she is does so with ease. Moreover, it pleases her to do so.

A soft noise draws her attention from work, the telltale sound of a young girl creeping along a hallway, and Saavik raises her gaze to the door. She listens to hear the clicking of claws and then the quiet, but firm rebuke of her eldest daughter. " _No, I-Chaya, you are to remain—I_ told you _to watch T'Pai, she is—_ I-Chaya _you are not listening—_ "

It is Saavik's belief that not even the masters of the Kolinhar itself could resist amusement in the presence of an exasperated child. Pressing her lips together in an attempt to suppress her own mirth, she leaves her work and goes to the door.

She finds, as she had expected, her daughter standing before her sehlat with arms folded, her braid a dark line down her back, stark against the white of her shift. On the verge of pubescence, the little girl is still very much a child, emotions still visible upon her face as she turns, but Saavik can see the formidable Vulcan woman her daughter will be.

It is most visible in the way Soleta squares her slim shoulders beneath her mother's scrutiny, waiting for correction.

"He will not listen," Saavik says. "Your father's instructions were clear. He will watch _you_." She makes no mention of the fact their current situation is a precise example as to why Spock had given those instructions and, indeed, why he purchased the animal in the first place.

With one parent given to recklessness and the other given to intense curiosity, Saavik is aware her children likely require every sehlat on the planet as well as multiple Starfleet security teams before they can be considered properly supervised.

Perhaps not even then.

She dare not consider the sensation of pride such realization elicits within her.

"I am older than T'Pai," Soleta says. "She requires attention more than I."

"You are correct," Saavik agrees, "in that you are older. However, your second statement is patently untrue." She raises one brow, hopefully in perfect approximation of her husband, with the statement. "There are a number of accounts which easily disprove it."

A stray dark curl has fallen free of Soleta's braid and Saavik tucks it behind her ear. "However, we need not consider your adventures tonight."

"I have disturbed you," Soleta says, considering the open door behind her. "You are working."

"I am filling hours," Saavik says. "Spending time with my daughter is a far more preferable method by which to do so." It will not be so many years before they part company. She will return to the stars, Soleta will embrace whichever path her future will offer her, and moments such as these will be few and far between.

She has not told her children of her youth—not even her son, a grown man likely aware of it anyway—but the story is always there at the edges of her thoughts. She thinks of telling her daughters that she was not always the lady they see before them, not always the Starfleet captain of their infrequent acquaintance, that she was once wild, untamed, even savage in her ways. She isn't embarrassed by those days, that girl, but it is a story she treasures and, thus, hesitates to share.

Some day, they will need to know as they will have need to understand the transformations a woman might see herself through. Some day, they will undergo similar transformations in themselves and shape the world around them with their touch. She can only hope that she and Spock will witness the Vulcan that forms in their wake.

"Come," she says, all too aware of the seconds even as they pass, carrying them ever closer to that day, and holds out her hand. "We will work on something together and then you will return to bed."

She does not know the identity of her Vulcan parent, but raising children has taught her mercy. The idea of her daughters living as she did cuts deep, deeper so than any pain Saavik has ever experienced, and she can understand the agony they had known. The shame of failing their child. She can forgive much with that feeling simmering in her thoughts. Forgive and hope that they would know the same pride in her accomplishments that she experiences in the tiniest success of her children.

"Mother," Soleta says, drawing her eyes. "May I sleep with you tonight?"

It has been some time since any of her children have made that request. Years. Saavik's grip tightens on her daughter's hand, the reassurance of Soleta's thoughts washing over her, and she nods.

"It is a Terran tradition," she says. "And one I am quite fond of." She remembers many such nights with all her children, swathed in soft blankets, cradled gently between herself and her husband, enchanting them with every breath.

Sometimes, this life—her work and her family—is enough. Then there are times like tonight—times when it is an embarrassment of riches and she is overwhelmed. So much so she feels as though she might drown in it or soar to the heights of Seleya herself.

Saavik breathes in the cool night air, feeling her husband's thoughts brush hers as sure as the tiny fingers curled about her hand. She feels the depth of it, the strength of Spock as his mind closes the impossible distance between them, catching her up anew.

An embarrassment of riches indeed.


End file.
